Natural Body Care
Our skin is the largest organ of the body. It is important to take as much care of it as we can and to fully check our skin every once in a while. Creases and crevices can get red, irritated, smelly, or become sensitive. Our skin can have a lot to say including telling us if something is wrong.
What does natural body care mean to you? As an esthetician my view may be a lot different than yours because I look at the body for a living. Natural body care is creating small habits supporting your overall body and keeping it healthy. For example, not drying your entire body with a towel or letting it air dry completely before getting dressed can lead to bacterial or fungal growth on the body in a moist area, crease, or crevice. A common area many people do not dry completely is between the toes, which can lead to bacterial or fungal growth.
What about your clothes? Do you wear leggings all day, everyday? Do you wear your pants or jeans for multiple days before washing them? As a professional helping people remove unwanted hair, I see clients with redness and irritation in the creases of their legs, especially in the upper thighs from moisture and sweat partly due to how tightly clothes fit. It is important to remember to let our skin breathe. One way of giving our skin a break is to wear loose clothing for sleeping (or wear nothing at all).
Have you or someone you know suffered from flaky skin? Flaky skin is dead skin sitting on top of live skin. Like a healing wound, our skin cells reproduce to give us new cells. When the top part is healing, it is flaky and sometimes itchy. If you never get rid of dead skin cells by exfoliation, you can cause injury to your live skin because the live skin is attached to the dead skin. Once the dead skin starts to flake off, it can get caught on something, ripping off and taking the live skin with it. Exfoliating the dead skin, and moisturizing the remaining live skin, is the simplest way of naturally caring for your body.
Natural body care can include the use of ingredients, body care products, or lifestyle habits. Find what works for you. Make sure you are doing at least the bare minimum to allow your body and skin to function properly. Dry your body thoroughly after you get out of the shower, exfoliate to get rid of any dead skin, and moisturize to help keep your skin smooth and healthy looking. If you need to take off dead skin, for example a hangnail, it’s better to cut it off with scissors versus ripping it off. When you rip skin from your nails, it can take live skin too, which can turn into a wound prone to infection. Look at your skin often, do a visual check and feel to see if your body is telling you anything through your skin. For example checking for skin tags, moles, itchiness, redness, or bruising can be your body’s way of voicing bigger concerns than just your basic health issue. Redness can be a sign of sweating, rubbing, or irritation from clothing or laundry detergent.
Natural body care can be easy for anyone to practice even with limited time. It doesn’t take much to keep our skin happy and healthy. I hope you help your skin find the sweet side of natural body care!